Ghosts Again – Alex Cortright – April 4, 2016

Be sure to check out Ghost’s Again facebook page and give a listen to their music! They have lots of videos posted! – graci

Congrats on your upcoming release of “The Closest Thing to Closure!” It looks like you are guys aren’t signed (if I am wrong – please correct me!), so this must have been a labor of love. Can you talk about how it came to be?

Thank you! When we formed this band we knew exactly what we wanted to do and we all take music very seriously so we immediately got to writing and hit the studio to record these tracks. It’s definitely a labor of love though, we all really have a strong connection to the songs and really can’t wait for people to hear what we’ve created.

On your facebook it says that you guys have been together since September 2015, can you please tell me how you guys came together and how you decided on the band name “Ghosts Again?”

After taking a break from music for a while, Brandon and I decided to get back into music again and through a lot of pretty interesting coincidental circumstances, we came together with Arun and formed this band The name I came to from the idea that life is sort of like a repetitive cycle of good and bad and losing yourself and finding yourself. No matter how hard you work to be the best person you can be, things will always happen to drag you back down until you’re like a ghost of yourself again. When we formed this band I had been through a tough year and it really felt like I had become a ghost again. So yeah, I pitched the name to the band and they were really into it so we went with that!

You’ve said that you are most proud of “Pant’s Division” and one of the reasons is the deepness of the lyrics. Can you talk about what led you guys to sing about such questions?

I got a lot of inspiration from a book I was reading at the time called The Amber Spyglass by Phillip Pullman and I honestly find myself quite often somewhere deep in my thoughts contemplating subjects like the ones in this track. There are actually a few instances on this EP that talk about spiritual concepts and religion so you could almost say it’s just as much of an EP theme as it is the song theme.

When you are writing lyrics is it a group effort, or is one of you the primary lyric writer? How does your lyric writing look like ? Do you constantly write, or just when recording ?

I do pretty much all of the lyrics exclusively with the exception of one section on the EP, which is the outro to the closing track called “Eleven”. That section was written by our drummer, Arun. He just sort of wrote it one day and asked me if I liked it and wanted to use it and I was super into it so we worked it into the song, but otherwise I’ve written all the other lyrics.

Writing lyrics for me is a compilation of thoughts I have. Basically throughout the day when I’m in my thoughts alone or listening to music or just practicing guitar, I constantly find inspiration and whenever a thought, line, or concept comes to me, I jot it down in my phone and save it for later. After some time these notes in my phone pile up and when we write music and it comes time for me to work on the vocals, I take a look at what I’ve got in my phone and start there with lines that fit well with the music we’ve written and I usually write in a lot of hooks on the spot while writing the guitar to sort of fill everything out.

What keeps you going and driving you to make it in this business?

Just pure love for music. We’ve all just always had a deep connection to the music we write and we just want nothing more than to show that music to as many people as possible. I think we can all say that we’ve had this dream since we were probably 14 years old. Getting on stage and playing your heart out is just such a crazy and unique experience that I guess you could say we’re addicted to.

Have you guys had the chance to tour out of state? If so, where is the craziest place that you have had to sleep?

Not yet actually! Since we’re still a relatively new band, we can count the shows we’ve played on our fingers. Haha.

If we could take a peek at your playlist, what would the last 3 songs you played be?

For me it was “Carapathia”, “Cut Me Up”, “Jenny”, and “Swing” all by Taking Back Sunday. I’ve been on a kick lately just jamming their album “New Again”. I don’t really make compilation playlists cause I tend to really stick to a band for a few weeks when I listen to them and don’t really jump from band to band often in a listening session.

On that playlist, what would your fans be most surprised to find out you guys are listening to?
I think if I were to extend what I’ve been listening to the past couple weeks, people might be surprised to find I’ve been really jamming the new Kanye West album as well as “To Pimp a Butterfly” by Kendrick Lamar.

Who is one of your all time favorite artists and your favorite song of theirs?
That’s the hardest question you could ask! Haha. This year my all time favorite is Coheed and Cambria and my all time favorite song of theirs might be “The Dark Side of Me”.

What was the last concert you went to that you weren’t performing at?
I honestly can’t even remember. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a concert I wasn’t playing at. Gosh probably like over a year!

What can fans expect to see from you guys in 2016?

Our new EP “The Closest Thing to Closure” drops in a couple weeks! After the cycle on that, we’ll be powering on through to the next thing putting out more music for everyone. Hopefully we can perform in as many cities as possible and reach as many ears as we can!

Is there anything you’d like to say to your fans?

Thanks for believing in us and being the coolest people we could ever have the honor of knowing!